NATO says N. Korea rocket launch ‘provocative act’

PanARMENIAN.Net - NATO strongly condemned North Korea's rocket launch on Wednesday, Dec 12, saying it went against UN Security Council resolutions and could destabilize the region surrounding Korea, Reuters reported.

"This provocative act exacerbates tensions in the region and risks further destabilizing the Korean peninsula," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement. "NATO continues to call on the North Korean authorities to fulfill their obligations under international law."

The rocket easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

North Korea says the rocket will put a weather satellite into orbit. But the United States, South Korea and Japan have labeled it a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far away as the continental United States.

NATO called last week for North Korea to cancel its planned launch of a rocket using ballistic missile technology.

Rasmussen said in his statement on Wednesday that North Korea should "comply fully with the will of the international community as expressed by the United Nations Security Council and the moratorium on missile launches".

Operation Nemesis was a covert operation by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation carried out from 1920 to 1922, during which a number of former Ottoman political and military figures were assassinated for their role in the Armenian Genocide.